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Mini Module: Reputation
On a successful reputation check, you are recognized on sight, which means that the NPC or NPCs need only see you to immediately recognize you. If the reputation check fails, then you are only recognized by name. This means that an NPC will only recognize you if he or she hears your name (or at least the name you use in public). If the reputation check fails by five or more, then you are only recognized with some prompting. After being reminded of who you are (by maybe mentioning some of your achievements), the NPC will recognize your character. If the reputation check fails by 10 or more, then your character is simply not recognized, which may be a good thing or a bad thing. Skill Checks: When an NPC with an Intelligence of -3 or higher has a positive opinion of your reputation, you may use your reputation dice pool to reroll Interaction skill checks: Persuasion and Streetwise for Gathering Information. As with other dice pools, you select the highest result from your rolls, and then lose one reputation die. This represents a character spending some of that hard-earned clout to really sway the opinion of someone, and as a result, having to earn that clout and popularity again through hard work. When an NPC with an Intelligence of -3 or higher has a negative opinion of your reputation, you must roll all of your Interaction skill checks with your dice pool. Instead of selecting the highest result, you must accept the lowest result you rolled. However, your reputation pool does not shrink with each use: interacting with people with poor opinions of you does not cause your reputation to decrease. Note that when dealing with NPCs who have a negative opinion of your reputation, you may still use your reputation dice pool in a positive way for Persuasion checks to intimidate a target. Just because they dislike you doesn't mean they're fearless! The bonus or penalty only applies when you are interacting outside of combat with an NPC who recognizes you and is therefore aware of your reputation. Those unaware of your reputation are unaffected by it either way. NPC Reputations: Players decide how their characters act. Sometimes, however, it’s appropriate for the GM to call for a skill check using an interaction skill affected by reputation. For example, an NPC might use Persuasion to lie to the characters, who, in turn, use Perception to detect the lie. If an NPC tries to intimidate a character, the GM can use the NPC's Persuasion check result to determine which characters see the NPC as intimidating and which don’t. Players may also want to know if their characters recognize a particular NPC. Reputation checks can be useful in these situations. The GM should make a reputation check in secret to see if players’ characters recognize an NPC. This prevents the players from using the results of reputation checks as a means of measuring the importance of every NPC they encounter. Modify the results of the NPC’s interaction skill checks by their reputation bonuses when they interact with characters who recognize them. Since NPCs generally don’t have any dice pools, a good rule of thumb is to give NPCs a reputation bonus equal to their Charisma modifier + Reputation Feats + ½ their Power Level, using modifiers of +2 for increasingly famous NPCs or penalties of -2 for more obscure NPCs. Reputation Limits: In general, a character cannot have more reputation dice than his Power Level total. So a PL 10 character’s pool of reputation dice cannot exceed 10. The GM may wish to vary starting reputation dice based on the needs of the game. For most games where the characters are starting from obscurity with no other real adventures to their names, then starting with no reputation dice is appropriate. However, if the characters are established in the setting with previous careers before the game began, for example, they may have greater reputations, perhaps 2 or 3 reputation dice apiece. If they are covert agents or otherwise out of the public eye, you may want to forgo reputation altogether. Each rank in the Renown feat increases a character’s reputation by +2. Each rank in the Low-Profile feat reduces a character’s reputation by –2. Event-Based Reputation: Reputation also changes based on the things characters do... at least, the things other people know about. When a character performs some important action, the Gamemaster can award the character one or more reputation die. This can range from 1 reputation die for acts of local fame (saving the city, rescuing a local celebrity, etc.) to 4 reputation dice or more for things like saving (or trying to take over) the world. Keep in mind that the Reputation bonus only measures how well known a character is, not how people feel. Losing Reputation: The GM can likewise decrease a character’s reputation dice pool for staying out of the limelight, lying low, and otherwise not attracting attention for a while. People move on and forget about old headlines. Still, a character with a significant Reputation usually has to be out of circulation for years before most people forget. A good rule of thumb is that it takes a number of weeks out of the spotlight equal to a character’s reputation modifier to lose one reputation die. So a character with 3 reputation dice and a +2 Charisma (and no Renown or Low-Profile feats) will take 5 weeks of obscurity to lose one reputation die. After that, it will take 4 weeks to lose another die, and 3 more weeks to lose the last reputation die, for a total of 12 weeks to lose all three reputation die. |- !class="small" align="right" style="color: white" bgcolor='#000000'| | |- !class="small" align="right" style="color: white" bgcolor='#000000'| | |} Category:Rulebook Category:Action Category:Dramatic Interaction Category:Mini Module Category:Reputation